1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to the field of fragrance compositions and particularly, but not exclusively, fragrance compositions for use in fragranced consumer products including air freshening compositions.
2. Background
All known fragrance compositions comprise a single fragrance accord. A fragrance accord is a collection of raw materials that are used to create a specific olfactive odour that cannot be created from a single raw material and/or essential oil.
A fragrance accord is the olfactive theme or character of a fragrance and generally consists of a plurality of separate notes which in combination lose their individual identity to create a single odour or olfactive direction. The notes of a fragrance accord are defined by top notes, middle notes and base notes. Top notes represent the most volatile part of the accord these notes are usually perceived first by a human nose. The middle notes typically represent the “heart” of the accord as they often provide the majority of the fragrance. The base notes are typically the least volatile part of the accord and includes the heaviest molecules, therefore, the base note(s) usually linger for the longest period. A fragrance accord is typically made up of 10% top notes, 60% middle notes and 30% base notes.
When a perfumer wishes to make a fragrance accord that is indicative of a single core element, say rose, a perfumer would know that it would not be consumer-acceptable to simply provide diluted pure rose extract. In isolation, pure rose extract has a “dry” and “slightly dirty” smell and certainly is not what a consumer would expect from a rose fragrance. Instead, a perfumer would blend several raw fragrance materials with the rose extract to make it more consumer-acceptable. Most likely the perfumer would select a raw material that imparts a “light green note” together with another raw material having a “slightly sweet note”. Each of these different raw materials will have a different volatility (i.e., will be one of a top note, middle note or bottom note). The perfumer would carefully blend these raw materials together to ensure that the combination of the rose extract, the light green note and slightly sweet note does not result in one note being clearly distinguishable from the others, rather the perfumer ensures that the raw materials are blended to work together simultaneously and harmoniously to produce a consumer-acceptable “rose” fragrance accord, i.e., a fragrance composition with a single fragrance accord, consisting of a rose fragrance accord. The resulting rose fragrance accord would then be blended with other non-fragrance accord components depending on the technical requirements of the overall fragrance composition.
Similarly, when a perfumer wishes to make a fragrance mixture that is indicative of two core elements, say rose and vanilla, the perfumer would not simply mix a fragrance accord for rose with a separate fragrance accord for vanilla on a 1:1 ratio since this would result in an unbalanced fragrance that would not be simultaneously indicative of the two accords, such a 1:1 ratio of fragrance accords would result in one fragrance accord completely dominating the other to render the less dominant fragrance accord completely or substantially completely imperceptible to a consumer. Instead, the perfumer attempting to make a fragrance composition indicative of these two core elements would carefully blend key raw materials indicative of the combination of rose and vanilla to create a single blended rose and vanilla fragrance accord. To do this, a perfumer would have to confine himself to a reduced palate of raw materials since any raw material indicative of rose and any raw material indicative of vanilla could only be used together to produce a rose and vanilla fragrance accord if they could be blended with each other in such a way that the raw materials would be complementary with each other olfactively to not result in one raw material being clearly distinguishable from the others. Instead, the perfumer selects only certain raw material having notes which can be blended to work together to produce a single consumer-acceptable “rose & vanilla” fragrance accord, i.e., a fragrance composition with a single fragrance accord, consisting of a rose and vanilla fragrance accord.
Whereas a perfumer spends many years training in the art of creating perfumes and learning to distinguish olfactive features and understand the art of combining fragrance raw materials, a drawback of producing a balanced fragrance indicative of two core elements is that it can be difficult for a normal consumer that is not trained in olfactive matters to be able to distinguish the core elements either collectively or individually. For example, a normal consumer may think that the rose & vanilla fragrance discussed above has a “creamy & flowery” smell but would not necessarily be able to recognise that the perfumer has attempted to produce a fragrance that is simultaneously indicative of both rose and vanilla.
In addition to fragrance accords, a fragrance composition may also comprise other accords, including MOC accords and/or functional/technical accords.
An MOC accord (malodour counteraction) is a collection of perfumery raw materials having a proven malodour counteraction capability that when added to a fragrance composition are intended to enhance the overall MOC performance.
A functional/technical accord is a collection of raw materials that form the main body of the fragrance when strict technical requirements are necessary, they can be both odiferous materials and solvents. One such technical requirement may relate to the mechanism by which the fragrance is to be emanated, this is often referred to as “trickle-down”, by way of example in the case of continuous action emanation mechanisms strict control of viscosities and/or vapour pressures is required, or these accords may be present to assist in transportation through a hydrophobic membrane, or to solubilise in a polar base, or promote efficient and clean burning in a candle formulation.
An alternative mechanism to produce a consumer fragrance experience that is indicative of two core elements is to rely on a device to sequentially emanate separate fragrances at timed intervals from each other. Devices suitable for this include the AIRWICK® SYMPHONIA device, which is configured to receive two separate bottles of fragrance and sequentially direct heat toward each bottle to accelerate the evaporation of fragrance therefrom. In such a device the fragrances contained in each bottle can be different to facilitate a consumer being able to notice the sequential nature of the fragrance emanation.
One advantage of devices such as the AIRWICK® SYMPHONIA device is that they can alleviate or ameliorate fragrance habituation; fragrance habituation can occur when a single fragrance remains in a vicinity at a substantially continuous concentration and a consumer becomes attenuated to it to such a degree that they can either no longer detect the fragrance or can only barely detect the fragrance. In contrast, a drawback is that such anti-habituation devices are limited in applicability since they are only suitable for particular automated emanation mechanisms, such as using heat directed at a wick in fluid contact with liquid fragrance, and less suited for use with auto-spray mechanisms due to the size of device needed to accommodate two separate containers of fragrance such as two separate aerosols of fragrance. Such anti-habituation devices are not applicable to non-automated emanation devices including passive fragrance emanators (i.e., a fragrance emanator possessing no powered means to facilitate emanation, such as a reed diffuser or a fragrance gel emanator) or a fragranced candle or the like. The present invention seeks to provide a consumer fragrance experience that is indicative of at least two equally distinguishable fragrance accords without having to formulate them into a single blended fragrance accord only indicative for the core elements or without relying on a device to sequentially emanate separate fragrances.